<div dir="ltr"><div style id="stcpDiv"><div class=""><div class=""><h1 class="">Student plea for better quality in language teaching
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<img src="http://resources0.news.com.au/images/2013/11/28/1226770/640572-aebc67d4-57da-11e3-aa07-c19e311ed1c1.jpg" alt=" Professor Jo Lo Bianco on campus at Melbourne University in Victoria." height="366" width="650">
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<span class=""> Professor Jo Lo Bianco on campus at Melbourne University in Victoria.</span>
<span class=""><em>Source:</em> News Limited</span>
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<p><strong>
LANGUAGE students are crying out for better teaching and learning,
according to a pioneering study of the attitudes of school pupils.
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<p>"They do not consider their learning experiences positively
or likely to succeed," say Melbourne University academics Joe Lo Bianco
and Renata Aliani in a new book on language planning.</p><p>Professor
Lo Bianco and his colleague took the unusual step of canvassing the
opinions of secondary school students to find out why Australia's
ambitious language policies had met with such "uneven success".</p><p>Their 2005-2011 study drew on four schools from Western Victoria with Italian and Japanese programs.</p><p>They
found among students a "broadly positive response" to the rationale of
official language policy - Asia literacy and multiculturalism.</p><p>But students were not so impressed by the quality of their experience in the class.</p>
<p>"The students, many of them in both languages, are calling
for more systematic and higher-quality language learning," the authors
say.</p><p>"The lofty aims of policy declarations ride uneasily
on such generally reflective students and while many are waverers,
perhaps the majority are committed, or would be, if the language
programmes offered were more rigorous and active."</p><p>In their book, <a href="http://www.multilingual-matters.com/display.asp?K=9781783090044">Language Planning and Student Experiences</a>,
the authors base this conclusion chiefly on an exercise in which senior
students ranked 25 statements of opinion that had emerged from focus
groups.</p><p>One of the resulting "perspectives" among learners
of Italian was given the tag "Fix it, but ask us" - meaning these
"students want to be able to experience the language through direct
activity - excursions, films and cultural activities - and that students
want to be involved in the selection of teaching topics".</p><p>Another
perspective was tagged "It's a bludge" - arising from statements such
as "It's an opportunity to catch up on other work 'cause we do nothing
in Italian".</p><p>In Japanese, one perspective was given the
title "Let's use it more" - reflecting the wish "for a more practical
approach, which includes excursions, fewer worksheets and activities
such as cooking".</p><p>A less happy perspective was "I'm not
following you" - which expressed bewilderment as teachers moved through
material too quickly, and touched on problems of lack of motivation and
disruption in a compulsory language class.</p><p>The authors
argue that too little work has been done to see how the fruits of
language policy - "conceived in far away Cabinet meeting rooms" - are
experienced by students who sometimes have no choice but to learn a
language.</p><p>Writing while Julia Gillard was prime minister,
the authors touch on the most recent federal foray into language policy,
the Asian Century white paper.</p><p>They say the "ongoing
jostling for power" between Ms Gilard and the Asianist Kevin Rudd
"actually conditioned (Ms Gillard's) own interest in Asian integration
and language education".</p><p>And they note speculation by the
political journalist Michelle Grattan in 2011 that should Mr Rudd return
to power he could "inherit the policy Gillard promoted partly to keep
him at bay politically".</p><p>The authors say: "This rather bizarre source of innovation must be unprecedented in the annals of language policy".</p><p>As
it happened, Mr Rudd gave no obvious weight to the Gillard white paper
or Asia literacy once he returned as prime minister in 2013, and the new
Coalition government quietly consigned it to the archives.</p></div> -
See more at:
<a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/student-plea-for-better-quality-in-language-teaching/story-e6frgcjx-1226770641034#sthash.4Y1by3AU.dpuf">http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/student-plea-for-better-quality-in-language-teaching/story-e6frgcjx-1226770641034#sthash.4Y1by3AU.dpuf</a></div>
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